1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to visual mapping systems, and, more particularly, to tracking user presence in individual topics in a visual mapping system.
2. Description of the Background Art
A visual map is a diagram that represents ideas and/or information in topics. Examples of visual maps are mind maps, topic maps, semantic networks, and concept maps. Visual maps are increasingly used to help people generate, classify, and/or organize ideas and information and to see such ideas and information in a hierarchical, visual layout.
Visual maps are used for project management, work-flow analysis, organizational charts, and other purposes. FIG. 1 is an example of a visual map for information related to a wireless communication project meeting. The visual map in FIG. 1 is a mind map. Mind maps are made up of hierarchically-arranged topics. The main topics in FIG. 1 are “Action Items”, “Purpose”, “Agenda”, “Time Place”, “Participants”, and “Purpose.” Each of these topics has subtopics. For instance, “Implementation” is a subtopic for “Action Items,” and “Carry out Launch” is a subtopic of “Implementation.”
There are software programs that enable people to easily create visual maps. Mindjet, Inc.'s MINDMANAGER software is an example of such software.
When viewing or working on a shared visual map, it would be desirable to see what other users are also “present” in the map and to have the ability to easily initiate communications with such other users. There are known document sharing systems that display user “presence” on the document level for word processing and spreadsheet documents. For example, GOOGLE DOCS enables a user to see if another user currently has the same word processing or spreadsheet document open. However, known systems do not track and display user presence in individual sections or objects of a file. There is no known visual mapping system that enables user to see other users' presence in individual topics. Consequently, there is a need for a visual mapping system that displays user presence in individual topics. Also, there is a need for a file system that displays user presence in individual sections of a file.